A Ghost at the Door

by Michael Dobbs

  His outburst was brought to a sudden halt. With surprising vigour Johnnie had raised his stick as if to strike him.

  Harry stood his ground. ‘You’re not going to get away with that again.’

  The words hit the old man as a storm hits an old ship and something broke inside Johnnie. He sagged, capsized, surrender flooding through his eyes. ‘I remember,’ he sobbed, wretched, hiding his face in his handkerchief. When he spoke again his voice was little more than a gasp. ‘I did, didn’t I? Just the once. I’m sorry, Harry, son, I was ashamed. And I lashed out to cover that shame because I didn’t know what else to do. It was a time in my life when I wasn’t doing so well. After your mother died.’

  ‘I remember those years. The screaming matches. You storming out. The weeks you disappeared instead of being at home with us.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘You betrayed us.’

  ‘Why do you hate me so?’

  ‘You broke my mother to pieces!’

  ‘Harry, you were young. You don’t understand.’

  ‘I can still see her in the bedroom where she died. You didn’t even have the decency to bring me back from school to say goodbye to her.’

  ‘You were thirteen. I was trying to protect you. When your mother died I didn’t know what to do.’ The breeze had picked up, scratching at his old eyes, making them watery, sending tears down his dry cheeks. ‘Your mother . . .’ He gasped in pain, then he raised his eyes in defiance, staring at his son. ‘Jessie was a pearl. To me she was priceless. Not perfect, who is? But what does it matter if the woman you love has a few flaws? And I loved her so very much. But all she saw was the flaws in herself and the closer she looked, the larger they came to seem. It got too much for her, something inside telling her she was inadequate, unworthy. And it ate her away.’ He groaned in misery. ‘Past mistakes. Things she should have forgotten. Things I knew about and which ought to have been pushed to one side. But instead she pushed me aside. Said I reminded her of all her guilt.’

  ‘You left us!’

  Johnnie shook his head. ‘That was her choice, not mine. Never mine.’

  ‘There were so many other women.’

  ‘Only after Jessie had died and none that mattered. That’s why when I staged my own death it didn’t really matter to me. There was no one else. Even you had forgotten me. So I came back here, to my old world, this Elba in the Irish Sea. No one would find me here. And it was where I spent the happiest years of my life, with Jessie.’

  ‘You bastard, I don’t believe a word of it!’ Harry cried, but Jemma was in his arms, her fingers to his lips, silencing him.

  ‘It’s true, Harry, believe me,’ she whispered.

  ‘How the hell do you know?’

  ‘McQuarrel told me much of it.’

  ‘McQuarrel!’ Harry scoffed in dismissal.

  ‘He thought I was dying at the time. He had no reason to lie.’

  A fog of confusion settled on Harry. It was too much. He couldn’t rewrite his entire life in five minutes. ‘I still don’t believe you,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps you were too young to remember the good times, Harry, when we were in London, when your mother was in better health. Why, we had so much fun, Jessie and me, watching you grow.’

  Harry was trembling. Jemma held him in her arms, then led him back to the bench where his father sat. She settled between them once more, took Harry’s hand, then that of his father, joining the three of them.

  ‘McQuarrel told me many things, Harry.’

  Johnnie tensed in concern, she squeezed his hand in reassurance as she continued. ‘How your father would come to their reunions bubbling with stories. About you. What you had done. How proud he was of you.’

  The old man was nodding, a teardrop dancing down the ridge of his nose that he didn’t bother to hide.

  ‘McQuarrel also told me about how much your father loved your mother, through the thick and the thin, and for all the mistakes she made. You Jones boys, father, son – to hell with it, Harry, you two are so much alike.’

  They fell to silence, each in the grip of their different thoughts, all three of them in pain. The sun stood high in the sky, warming the breeze that rippled through the heather on its way to the sea. The old man’s nurse was standing at a respectful distance, waiting to take him back.

  ‘That is a lovely ring,’ Johnnie said, gazing down at Jemma’s hand, which was still tightly locked around his own.

  ‘He does well, your son. At times.’

  ‘Dad?’

  A single word. The old man looked up. It was the first time he had heard that word since a time so long ago it had almost disappeared.

  ‘Dad, why don’t you come home with us?’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  So Johnnie was alive and had even become a grandfather. The Joneses are full of surprises. I hope the reader will forgive me for making the Jones family such an untidy unit but it has opened up all sorts of adventures for them. If you would like to find out more about Ruari, Harry’s fascinating son, you will need to read Old Enemies.

  A Ghost at the Door is Harry’s sixth adventure and for anyone familiar with his escapades I have the usual list of suspects to thank. Ian Patterson has been an inspiration from the start of the series, as has Andrei Vandoros, and they continue to be a huge source of strength, humour and knowledge. As he was with A Sentimental Traitor, Sean Cunningham has been extraordinarily patient and supportive on the many occasions I have pestered him about police procedure.

  A friend of many years standing – although she remains everlastingly young – is Sarah Maltby, with whom I used to work at Saatchi & Saatchi before we both went our different ways. Sarah ended up in Bermuda and has helped refresh many of my memories about that lovely island.

  Another destination that featured heavily in the research and writing of this book is the Ionian island of Meganissi. It is small but wonderfully hospitable and I wanted to show my gratitude by naming one of the characters after Iro Kottikas, who has patiently provided so many of the Greek details.

  Professor John Dodds is another friend from that part of the world who appears yet again on the list of thanks. He helped me with much of the background for the city of Trieste that featured prominently in Old Enemies. Evidently he didn’t find the process too painful because he has continued to provide guidance about consular procedures.

  Mrs Stephanie Harwood was a delightful host when I wanted to research houseboats on the Thames at Chelsea, while Dr Ian Plummer of Balliol College was very helpful with his unparalleled experience of the sport of croquet at Oxford. I only wish I could have used more than a tiny fraction of the fascinating information he made available to me. Also at Oxford I must thank those at my old college of Christ Church, and in particular Helen Camunas-Lopez in the Steward’s Office, who tolerated my frivolous enquiries with a cheerfulness I probably didn’t deserve.

  I owe several debts of gratitude to those who have helped me on Church matters. My long-standing friend Sir Tony Baldry is a Church Estates Commissioner who shares no resemblance whatsoever with the character of Cyrus Harefield MP. This may be at Tony’s insistence rather than mine. Archdeacon Emeritus Peter Delaney allowed me to wander around the Wren church of St Stephen Walbrook and to clamber up its somewhat precarious tower. St Stephen’s is a place of breathtaking beauty and peace; if you don’t know it, I recommend a visit. My old Christ Church friend Alastair Redfern helped steer me around some of the ecclesiastical rocks – although in the case of Bishop Randall I fear I may have got myself firmly stuck on them. Alastair and I used to row together at Christ Church; he sat higher up the boat than me. He still does. Nowadays he is better known as the Bishop of Derby and is a colleague in the House of Lords.

  Mary Hamilton provided a delightful evening at the Henley Festival on which I relied for one of the opening scenes, and Kevin Hughes was always willing to respond to my questions about the City of London. My colleague of far too many years, John Ranelagh, will, I ho
pe, forgive me for stealing his family name.

  Another dear friend was Shukri Ghanem. We met more than forty years ago at the Fetcher School of Law and Diplomacy. I helped type his doctoral thesis on oil pricing. We went our separate ways and he eventually became a controversial prime minister of Libya. He died recently under mysterious circumstances. I used his inspiring memory for the character of Ali Abu al-Masri.

  I have taken creative liberties with so much of the advice and information I have been given. I hope those who provided it will forgive me.

  A Ghost at the Door is a story of fathers and sons, and the unavoidable impact they have on each other. Inevitably I have mined the relationship I had with my own father for ideas and I found the process therapeutic. He lived at Bride in the Isle of Man for the last and happiest years of his life. I hope much the same can be said for Johnnie.

  And as this is a book about family, my own family – Rachel and the boys – as always have earned the biggest round of applause. I do it all for them, just as they do every thing for me.

  Michael Dobbs

  Wylye, June 2013

  www.michaeldobbs.com

  @dobbs_michael